Verb Tenses

ESL learners often find English verb tenses to be quite frustrating. To be honest, I’m not sure why. Compared to the languages I have learned, verbs in English are fairly uncomplicated. (Of course they are more complicated than some other languages as well, but my point is that they’re not that complicated!)

The third-person “S” in the present simple (also known as the simple present) is a bit of a challenge, but we can remember one thing, can’t we?

One area that a lot of ESL learners have trouble with is with questions. English makes questions differently than many other languages; we change the order of the words, and we introduce new words (auxiliary verbs), which complicates things a bit. One of the ways I decide how good a person’s English really is: Can they ask questions correctly? Make sure you work on asking properly-formed questions.

Of course, it is also important to remember that verb carry a lot of meaning in English. Other languages often use words or phrases apart from the verb to explain where an idea fits in time, or its relation to other events. In English, on the other hand, a lot of this information is included in the choice of verb tense, so it’s important to get it right!